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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy looks on during his visit to the Museum of Occupation of Latvia in Riga, Latvia October 16, 2019. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins

We are beyond halfway through October, and there’s still no certainty whether the much awaited and long-delayed summit of the Normandy Four states (Ukraine, Russia, Germany, and France) will take place. The summit is meant to jump start the moribund Minsk process for achieving peace in Ukraine’s east.

On October 17, the German and
French leaders put on a brave face and “welcomed” progress in paving the way
for the meeting, now more than a month overdue. They, and Ukraine’s president, hope
that it will still be possible to hold a Normandy Four summit in November.

But at this stage, Russian President
Vladimir Putin has good reasons for not wanting the summit to go ahead. He
appears to have badly miscalculated the mood of Ukraine’s new president, and of
the majority of Ukrainian voters who recently put him in office. The Ukrainian
position, open and reasonably flexible at the outset, has hardened as a result
of public protests and an intense public discussion that has precipitated
reviewing and rethinking.

Zelenskyy promised to make the
quest for peace with Russia a priority, and initially wanted quick results
showing he had kept his word and would be able to break the costly and bloody
impasse.

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He made the release of Ukrainian captives held by Russia a priority and courageously displayed initiative in contacting Putin directly by phone to negotiate an exchange of prisoners. When the “swap” went ahead last month, it fueled hopes that Moscow was prepared to deal with the new leadership in Kyiv in a more conciliatory manner.

But these expectations were
quickly dashed. Moscow made the acceptance of the controversial Steinmeier
Formula the prerequisite for holding another Normandy Four Summit, the first
since 2016. Russia insisted on elements selectively taken out of the broader framework
of the Minsk accords agreed to in 2014-15 that would effectively bring
recognition to its Donbas proxies.

Although the Steinmeier Plan
meant serious difficulties at home, because Zelenskyy’s detractors immediately
accused him of capitulation, Kyiv reluctantly agreed to use this German
compromise mechanism as the basis for further discussion at a future summit. Zelenskyy
said that he wanted an opportunity to sit down with Putin, in the presence of
the German and French leaders, to look him in the eyes and see if he was ready to
move forward.

If the summit failed to break
the ice, Zelenskyy said he would look at options. His Foreign Affairs Minister,
Vadym Prystaiko, subsequently announced that plan B consisted of inviting the United
States and Britain to participate in an expanded format. Not surprisingly, this
idea did not receive the support of Berlin or Paris, let alone Moscow.

Unexpected serious
complications in the relations between Washington and Kyiv related to internal
US political infighting appeared to rule out this contingency. And when at
their recent improvised press conference in New York, President Donald Trump
told Zelenskyy that he hoped that after the prisoner swap he would be able to
work things out with the Russian leader, his disinterest in becoming involved
seemed clear enough. Zelenskyy admitted a few days ago that he had wanted to
“pull” the American leader into the negotiations.

In the meantime, Moscow has not made any conciliatory moves. It has failed to rein in its proxies in the Donbas who lost no time in declaring Kyiv’s acceptance of the Steinmeier Formula a recognition of the right of “the people of the Donbas” to self-determination, including its “right” to maintain relations with Russia as it chooses and not to allow Ukraine to regain control of the border with Russia. Shelling and sniper fire at Ukrainian positions has intensified and in recent days several more Ukrainian soldiers have been killed. Last month Ukraine had proposed a disengagement of troops all along the “contact line,” but because of continued shelling its implementation in two new spots has had to be postponed.

The internal reaction to Kyiv’s
acceptance of the Steinmeier Formula was distorted for political purposes by
domestic opponents, and Zelenskyy himself has admitted that his team did not do
enough to manage the confusion. Sizeable protests on Kyiv’s famed Maidan and in
other Ukrainian cities followed and a right-wing vigilante group sought to
prevent the disengagement of troops in Petrivske. The heated discussion that
has followed has led Zelenskyy and his team to review, rethink, and adjust their
approach.

In such circumstances, reassurances
that the new Ukrainian leadership was not surrendering anything to Russia were not
enough. The result is that Moscow’s pressure on Kyiv, with friendly
encouragement from Berlin and Paris, has resulted in a clearer but firmer
revised Ukrainian position.

Among the key elements that
have been re-emphasized in the last days are that Russia’s military
intervention in the Donbas cannot be decoupled from its occupation of Crimea,
that for peace and democratic elections to be held in the occupied areas of the
Donbas, not only do Russian forces and armed bands need to be withdrawn, but
also that the fictitious entities created by Moscow as supposedly separatist “People’s
Republics” have to be dispensed with. Also, that a general amnesty for those
who have committed crimes against Ukraine and its people is out of the
question.

Moscow seems to have been caught
off guard by Kyiv’s tougher and more explicit line. Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry
Peskov says that Kyiv’s insistence that the Donbas and Crimea issues now be
linked and that the unrecognized Russian-backed pseudo-republics in the Donbas
be dissolved is unexpected “for Moscow, Berlin, and for Paris.” He and other
Kremlin representatives continue to stick to the official position that Russia
is not a party to the conflict in the Donbas, but is only involved in the
negotiations as a mediator and peacemaker.

In such circumstances, the
prospects for a new Normandy Four Summit are hardly promising. If it is held
and fails, Prystaiko says Kyiv will opt for a plan B. Whether it is the one
already suggested or something new remains to be seen. Kyiv does not have other
obvious options at this stage.

What has become clear to
Kyiv’s new leadership is that Moscow’s deception and game playing has to stop,
even if it is couched in the diplomatic parlance of the day. For an honest and lasting peace to be achieved,
things have to be called by their proper names. And solutions corresponding to
existing realities advanced.

In short, it appears that the
well-meaning, if initially inexperienced and idealistic, Zelenskyy, unconventional
and not entirely predictable, has been forced to learn this through the school
of hard knocks. But to his credit, he appears to be adapting and insisting on
different behavior not only at home but also in foreign affairs. Is anybody
listening?

Bohdan
Nahaylo is a British-Ukrainian journalist and veteran Ukraine watcher based in
Kyiv, Ukraine. He was formerly a senior UN official and policy adviser, and
director of Radio Liberty’s Ukrainian Service.

Further reading

Angry crowds took to the streets to denounce the Steinmeier Formula, equating it with capitulation to Moscow. But is it? At this point, not enough is known about details of the agreement—or even if the agreement will hold—to reach a judgment.

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